The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer.

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On my morning commute, I pass within a few feet of Facebook headquarters. At the office, I park on the edge of the Googleplex, which if left to expand at the current rate will soon cross into Nevada. When I check my email, I find tweets forwarded from one venture capitalist or another, momentarily excited by someone’s 140 characters of distilled genius. Sometimes, after I come home from work, my wife will mention a cool new thing she pinned or saw on Pinterest.

Marketers are being exhorted to crack and exploit the code of social media. No one has yet, but we will.

(image taken from SanFranAnnie's Flickr photostream)

But in the long run, it doesn’t matter nearly as much as the breathless pundits insist. Because, in a very fundamental way, Facebook changes nothing for brand builders.

The more things change…

The first ad agencies in America were founded in 1842. Their job was to sell ad space for the newspapers. No creativity was required. Customer insights were unnecessary. The agencies didn’t even write the advertising copy: The clients did.

By 1900, however, the forerunners of today’s ad agencies had figured out that the force multiplier of advertising was the message. “Copy” became king, moving toothpaste, breakfast cereals, and tobacco in previously unimaginable quantities. The original “Mad Men” figured out that advertising was “salesmanship in print,” and began replacing “keep your name before the public” ads with “reason why to buy” ads. They learned to put the rest of us under the proverbial microscope and became increasingly sophisticated and targeted as a result. They changed the outcome of presidential races for hire. They were like commercial gods.

If the news made daily papers and national magazines interesting, the new industry of professional advertising made them goldmines. But the medium was not the message. The message was the message. The Mad Men had claimed the “value add” part of newspaper advertising for their own.

Can you hear me now?

Radio was the next big media wave. Radio programs captured the imagination. Some became so popular that movie theaters would pause feature films in order to play a live radio program, so no one would miss their favorite.

In the 1920s, when some genius tried broadcasting a message about real estate for sale in New York City, the response was overwhelming. The post-print generation of Mad Men tested, tweaked, and mastered the new ad medium of radio advertising. Like the newspaper barons, the radio owners made fortunes. But again, it was the ad agencies that tapped the wealth potential by making the medium pay.